Here Lies Our Truth
by Fading wind
Summary: It's the end. Naruto's eyes are a fierce, bright red. Sakura thinks this is why Naruto isn't crying. The end, in her dreams, was never supposed to be like this. A Team Seven fic.


Title: Here Lies Our Truth  
Pairing: NaruSakuSasu  
Rating: PG-13  
Warnings: Some dark themes, some angst.  
Word Count: 1,768  
Disclaimer: No.  
Author's Notes: Un-beta'ed. I cried while writing it, and it was Sunday morning at 7:30 that I started writing it. I suppose-- mornings _do_ make me more sentimental. There are some bits of this fic that I didn't really like, that I felt maybe wasn't particularly necessary, but something compelled me to keep those bits in the fic. I hope people enjoy. It's been a while since I wrote a proper Naruto fic.

**Here Lies Our Truth**

It's the end. Naruto's eyes are a fierce, bright red. Sakura thinks this is why Naruto isn't crying. Naruto should be crying. The Naruto she knows, remembers, should be crying. Kyuubi won't let Naruto cry.

Sakura stands there helplessly, tears overflowing while memories flash across her mind. There has to be something she can do. This can't be the end. The end, in her dreams, was never supposed to be like this.

---

When she was young, Sakura wanted everything, and she thought she could get it. It wasn't hard. Everything-- just everything. It wasn't hard, right?

When she was young, Sakura thought she was in love. She looked at the Uchiha boy that everyone else swooned over, and she saw dark hair and dark eyes, and she thought she was in love.

Sakura wanted everything-- she wanted a higher grade, wanted to graduate from the academy and become a genin, wanted to experience the world, wanted Naruto to disappear, wanted to be Sasuke's girlfriend.

Sakura didn't understand Sasuke's loneliness back then.

(Now, Sakura can say that she probably didn't want to be part of Sasuke's burden.)

---

Naruto wanted to save Sasuke. Naruto still wants to save Sasuke. Sasuke isn't going to be saved, and maybe Naruto's finally realized that. That's why it's the end, with Sasuke's cold, obsidian eyes staring up at Naruto, emotionless yet defiant. Naruto is trembling, kyuubi's chakra raging inside him. Naruto doesn't want this to be the end. Sakura doesn't either. Sasuke--

Sasuke wouldn't care less if this was the end.

---

When Sasuke left her, Sakura found out what 'everything' really meant to her. Everything was Sasuke, is Sasuke-- _Sasuke, how far away is he now?_, will be Sasuke. Sakura loved Sasuke.

Sakura wanted everything. Naruto went in the hope of saving Sasuke, saving everything for Sakura, and he came back bruised and battered and almost on the verge of death, but alive. Alive. Sakura went to visit Naruto in the hospital, with its whitewashed walls and ceilings and the faint scent of disinfectant and Naruto wrapped in bandages and lying asleep under white sheets, and she crumpled onto the floor, tears sliding down her cheeks silently.

(Everything comes at a price.)

---

"Don't," she whispers. "Don't, Naruto."

Naruto isn't ready, but then Naruto had never been the kind to be able to prepare himself for death. Naruto is the kind to avoid thinking _and listening to his heart beating frantically underneath his skin_. Naruto is the kind who just plunges into it and does the thinking afterwards.

"Don't."

In Sakura's mind, this is where Naruto stops and thinks and looks at her. This is where the end becomes some kind of beginning. This is where she'll find hope in everything again.

In reality, this isn't anything like that.

---

Sakura resolved to be more useful after that. Resolved to be more useful, so that she could achieve her everything one day. She worked hard, and so did Naruto. Two years passed by in a frenzy of learning and training and bickering with their mentors.

Everything seemed closer and further at the same time. When Naruto came back to Konoha, Sakura thought of it in a different way. Naruto was coming back to her. Her teammate, her friend, the person who would save Sasuke with her.

Sakura missed Sasuke.

But Sakura missed Naruto's brilliant blue eyes and blond hair and wide, unbreakable grin as well. Sakura missed his obnoxiousness and the way he made things lively just by being there.

(Two years is a long time to miss someone. Two years is a long time to miss everything.)

---

"I hate you, Sasuke," Naruto drags out every single syllable separately, his voice low and harsh and dark. "I wanted to save you."

Sasuke doesn't say a single word, head tilted, eyes still focused unblinkingly on Naruto. Sakura thinks that Sasuke knows all of it already. Everyone knows it. Sakura has heard it so many times herself that sometimes at night it comes back to haunt her in her dreams, echoing endlessly, _hate hate hate save save you you you_ and she wishes Naruto would stop saying it.

She wishes Sasuke would listen to it.

"I love you," Naruto adds quietly, almost like an afterthought. But Sakura knows an afterthought will never compare to this. This is the first time Sakura's heard Naruto say those words, even though she's known the truth for a long time, perhaps before Naruto realized the truth himself. She isn't taken back, she isn't upset, because she's accepted it. She's happy that, if it must end, at least it ends like this.

Sasuke doesn't show any sign of response, not even a flicker of emotion on his face. Too far gone, Sakura thinks, heart swelling in pain. It really is the end, after all. She is going to lose everything. Except-- everything has changed.

---

It didn't take long for Sakura to realize that everything was shifting slowly. Naruto had gained a great deal from training. Sakura was proud. Sakura was proud that Naruto had matured so much.

Naruto told her that she was great with an awed expression, blue eyes glittering. Naruto told her that her medic skills were amazing. She was tired, but Naruto's words lit up a lot for her. Whenever she was concentrating too much during work, she sometimes forgot about everything for a while.

When Naruto talked to her, everything came back in a flash of dazzling light. And then she sensed it at last-- her everything was not quite the same anymore.

(Later on she would press her lips against Naruto's, her very first kiss, bitter and sweet and memories flooding back into her mind. They would pull apart and Sakura would laugh at how much she thought she hated Naruto back then, and Naruto's smile would break her heart.)

---

And Sasuke speaks, for the first time. "Do you think our names will go down in history?" he asks, his gaze turning to Sakura for a brief moment. "The new Sannin."

Sakura wants to scream and pound Sasuke with her fists and yell at him for being stupid. Instead, she smiles wearily, glad that Sasuke's saying something-- maybe it means that he can be saved after all. She can see Naruto is thinking the same thing. Naruto's poise is not so tense now, eyes softening into a lesser shade of crimson.

"Our relationship is so twisted," Sasuke muses aloud. He seems to read Sakura and Naruto's minds. "This has to be the end. It won't be any other way. Naruto, if you're ever going to be some use," his tone has become a lazy drawl, and Sakura remembers the days back then, when Team Seven was whole, when they laughed together and ate ramen at Ichiraku and Sasuke rolled his eyes at Naruto being silly and Naruto pretended he didn't notice and Sakura didn't ever realize what the future was like. "Please, kill me now."

Naruto looks shocked. Sakura isn't as startled-- she thinks she probably foresaw what Sasuke was going to say.

"Sasuke," Naruto begins, but Sasuke cuts him off.

"The only time where you can prove yourself to be a hero, a great shinobi, and not a useless person who comes last in everything-- and you can't do it. Kill me. Execute the traitor of the village. Go back to Konoha with Sakura," _here Sakura's heart skips a beat, because it's been too long since the last time she heard him say her name,_ "and be welcomed. Go on. Kill me. I don't have any purpose to live on."

"You have Naruto," Sakura says. "You have Naruto and you have," she pauses because it takes too much courage to go on. Despair fuels her, despair tells her that this'll be the last chance she'll have. "You have me," she continues, watching Sasuke closely for a reaction, but getting none. "You have me and you have all those who still believe in you in the village."

"Kill me," Sasuke repeats icily. "Kill me."

Naruto flares up. This is the way that Naruto loves, Sakura has learnt-- daringly, on impulse, spur-of-the-moment, and regretting it afterwards sometimes. This will be one of the times that he will regret it. The ultimate mistake. Naruto rushes forwards, kunai in hand.

Strangely, Sakura thinks it might be better this way.

---

Sakura loved Naruto. Sakura loved Sasuke. And she knew that Naruto wasn't Sasuke, Sasuke wasn't Naruto, and together they blended into everything for Sakura. Naruto was there, though, and Sasuke wasn't. Naruto was there when Sakura came back from work, exhausted and too much dirt and blood on her hands, there to reassure her that someday they would save Sasuke, bring Sasuke back, and Team Seven would be whole again. Naruto was there to love Sakura.

Sakura didn't care that Naruto didn't only love her, just like Naruto didn't care that Sakura didn't only love him, because in their relationship, devotion wasn't about one person-- it was about two. Loyalty and friendship and love, _everything_ was dedicated to two persons. Sakura, too, had come to believe in the same thing, the dynamics of Team Seven. She knew that Sasuke was the same, whether he would admit it or not, whether he was now halfway across the world or if he was right by their side.

(Sakura learnt many useful things in her life, but she thinks that the greatest lesson-- however clichéd it may sound-- is love.)

---

Time is at a standstill.

At this moment, Sakura has everything right here with her. Sasuke's smile is barely noticeable, a wisp of contentment on his bitter expression, but Sakura tries her best to memorize it, the way his lips curve slightly upwards. Naruto's eyes have turned back to blue, and with a tightness in her chest, Sakura realizes it may be the last time she'll see them this bright. After this, she's scared that they'll fade into a dull blue, and she prays that they won't, because she's always loved the way they sparkle in sunlight.

There's no sunlight here, only darkness, but Naruto's eyes are shining, glistening with tears and the realization that _this is the end_. Sakura takes an unsteady step forwards, and another one, until she's joined her two teammates. She reaches out, her hand grazing past Sasuke's cheek, the last time she'll ever touch him. Sasuke closes his eyes.

Naruto is crying.

_Everything_, Sakura whispers. She's found it at last, and yet at the same time, she's losing it.

This is the end. This is Team Seven. This--

is everything.

**The End**


End file.
